July 25 retaining wall collapse report

Yesterday we received a letter from Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell announcing that he had been sent the NYC Dept. of Buildings’ 808 Columbus Avenue Report of Investigation, dated Feb. 15, 2008, which looks into the retaining wall collapse last summer.

Below are some excerpts from that report, which I found linked from the Park West Village Tenants Association website and can also be found here.

The investigation concluded that the segment of sheeting system that collapsed was erected on top of a highly weathered (fractured) weak rock formation, and not on the competent rock indicated on the design drawings. Calculations showed that sheeting set upon a weathered rock base would eventually fail once the adjoining competent rock holding the weathered rock base in place was destabilized, whether by blasting or by mechanical means. On the date of the collapse, the adjoining rock was in fact removed by blasting. Prior to the blasting, this rock had provided lateral restraint to the weathered rock mass underneath the sheeting. The fragmentation of the adjacent rock allowed the weathered rock on which the sheeting had been erected to be displaced and thus induced the collapse (Pg. 1).

…

The lack of proper observations and stabilization measures by the responsible supervising engineer throughout pile installation and subsequent excavation allowed this failure to occur. If the rock under the sheeting had been competent, as indicated in the design drawings, or if the weathered rock had been stabilized as soon as it was identified either in the field or from a reading of the geotechnical report submitted by RA Consultants prior to the excavation, the fragmentation of the adjacent rock would not have caused the sheeting to fail and the incident would not have occurred (Pg. 2).

…

In addition, the failure to take seismic measurements appears to have violated Fire Department requirements. The failure to identify the weakened condition of the rock and the non-compliance with FDNY monitoring requirements should be referred to the appropriate units for issuance of violations or other appropriate action (Pg. 2).

The report also states, “The fractured and weakened condition of the rock mass could have been identified by the controlled inspector employed by Mayrich,” (Pg. 2) and that person could have informed Gotham Construction, the general contractor for the new building.

Also striking is the timeline of events of the days and hours leading up to the evacuation of the 784 Columbus Ave. and though the day the last residents were allowed back into the building. Two calls went to 311 between 1:30pm and 4pm, July 25, each with reports that the building was shaking. Police and the NYFD responded to a 911 caller shortly before 10pm, who reported the collapse, and the building was evacuated.

Blasting did significantly weaken the rock to which the protective sheeting (retaining wall) was secured, the report says, but there is insufficient evidence to conclude that blasting on July 25 was carried out improperly or directly caused further fragmentation of the rock, which ultimately lead to the collapse. The wall, and the building, sits atop the intersection of at least two fault lines in the rock. This could have contributed to the collapse.

I learned a lot about the local geology and proper blasting techniques and precautions from reading the report. It includes many nice pre- and post-collapse pictures of the site, too.

I appreciate being notified of the report’s existance. Thank you, sir. And thanks to the DOB for finishing the report in under seven months. (I know that sometimes reports seem to take forever to compete, and I’m not being sarcastic there.)

Gov. Paterson

Story coming later, but for now, let me just say that after attending press conferences and events held by speakers who are dry, who ramble and bumble or otherwise should not speak in public, listening to Governor David A. Paterson was a dream.

Update:

Here’s the story I wrote about the Association for a Better New York breakfast today. There was more to the speech and the reaction it got in the ballroom, but, you know how it goes sometimes.

Tartan Day Parade

Yesterday was the 10th Annual Tartan Day Parade. Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes was the parade’s grand marshal, and lead the pipe and drum corps,

dogs (one of which marked me…I own a Westie, too, and probably smelled like him to the dog),

clans

and dancers

up Sixth Avenue from 46th Street to 57th Street. A good time was had by all.

A few things I’m thinking about (in the wee hours of the morning)

1) When Al Gore took a Nobel Prize last year, I said that I was waiting for him to announce his candidacy for President. Only one person I know agreed and said he might vote for Gore if he ran. (This was back when there were several candidates in both parties. We have only briefly revisited the issue since then.) Now, it seems as though more and more people are looking to the former Veepee to make his move. Or not to make his move. Most Americans are coming to believe that humans have had some sort of impact on global warming, although the level of that impact and the future of the planet is still up for debate. But Gore has done a lot to put global warming to the radar and that might win him enough love from voters that he can emerge. I have my quibbles with both Obama and Clinton and I think that in the end, Obama will win out during the convention. But I am curious; how bad will the fighting between those two have to get or what would it actually take for him to be the one to lead Democrats out of the Obama-Clinton impasse? (I admit, I don’t really know what Gore’s views on other issues are in 2008–they quite possibly be different from his views in 2000. Once already he has won the vote. Could he do it again (and maybe the Electoral College vote, too)?

2) I am a little behind on my general news reading and missed this article about a linkage between breast cancer and bright light until today. Oh my gosh! I knew that animals can lose their way because of glare (as others use lit buildings and roadways as landmarks and maps to find their way around). But I did not know proximity and exposure to bright lights at night may correlate with a person’s breast cancer risk. Here is a similar article. (As a side note, I have always wondered how much energy–and money spent on that energy–would be saved if Times Square went dark for a night.) If there is a real connection, then I’ll add that as a reason my metropolitan days are numbered.

3) I attended a panel discussion of media coverage of poverty yesterday. (Those who read my clips know that.) One criticism of coverage practices made by the editors, reporters and columnists in the discussion, which took place during a meeting of the Welfare Reform Network, was that newspapers do not assign reporters to a poverty or a public housing beat. This is true. As one reporter told me later, many papers don’t drop the beats in favor of beats that deliver them breaking news. I thought about the stories I have covered in just a few months at Columbia. The Earned Income Tax Credit publicity effort. Residents of a building in the Bronx bringing their landlords to court over their failure to repair cracked walls and to provide apartments with continual electricity and heat. The announcement of a proposal for public health care. Welfare aid organizations and recipients asking the State Assembly Committee on Social Services and the Governor’s economic security cabinet to try to raise the welfare grant for the first time in 17 years. These were all stories written about events listed in the AP Daybook. Hoards of reporters attended some, but at others it seemed as though I was the only reporter in the room. Finding a story about poverty isn’t even as hard as accessing the daybook. A story I wrote about the St. George Ferry Terminal fish tanks presented the view that money spent on tourism should be spent on affordable housing in Staten Island. How did I come to include that view? I asked a woman who was waiting for the ferry what she thought about the tanks. Many environmental stories are really economic stories, and some of those involve poorer neighborhoods. In this way, poverty is so widespread that confining it to its own beat would cause significant overlap with other assignments. What papers need are reporting and editorial staff members who understand this and if are presented with a situation where poverty comes into play, report it! I think poverty stories are visible in stories on other topics already. But maybe my definition of poverty is a little more broad than the panelists’. (Also, I’ve never worked in a newsroom or served on an editorial board, so I have no first-hand knowledge of what goes on in–or on–one.)

Job Fair and beyond

I got a bit of a wake-up call at a job fair this weekend. Altogether it was a good experience for me, as I now know what I need to work on and what my best employment prospects are. So, thanks everyone for helping me figure things out.

This morning, I received an e-mail from a former boss. This boss saw a link to the transcript of Friday’s radio piece on the Brownfield tax credit cap proposed in the New York State budget in a Google Alert e-mail. This person liked the piece. Knowing that an insider insider appreciates my work is very nice. (And yes, I think this person would have called me out if I had gotten something wrong in the story.)

An old friend revisited

I just finished re-reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, which I first read in the summer of 2005. The book became a favorite of mine.

(I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price a few weeks later and got confused because Rowling’s world and Clarke’s world are very different and the latter was still fresh in my mind. For example, the limits of who can perform magic and the practice of performing magic are at odds in the two worlds. Interestingly, Clarke only includes the words of only a few spells, where as Rowling teaches spells to her readers along with her characters.)

Clarke came to Symphony Space in September 2005 for a reading and discussion of her debut novel. The explanations of her inspiration and character background that she gave that night made the book that much more enjoyable looking back. But I had lent it to someone have have never seen that copy again. This winter, after reading her short stories in The Ladies of Grace Adieu, I purchased another copy. And I am glad I did. Clarke’s stories in Ladies certainly added a little context for the events of the novel. You can enjoy stories without the novel, and vise versa, but I felt that I understood a little more the ideas of magic and stories about magic Clarke tells us in the novel English people have or know because I’ve read a few of them myself.

The last two weeks were re-filled with suspense and adventure, taking me from York to Genoa to Lost-hope. Even though I have called this book a favorite for almost three years, it was surprising how much of the story I had forgotten. Far from being bad, having a vague idea of what was about to happen and then having it unfold was a lot of fun.

My reactions to each character had changed from last reading to this. Maybe because I am older and a little more worldly now I identify with them differently and found some actions more–or less–upsetting that before. Spoiler ahead! For example, in this reading Arabella really grew on me. Norrell seemed a little more pathetic than evil. The connection between Strange and Norrell amused me both times. On first reading, I was a Strangite, but now, like John Childermass (one of the most interesting characters in the novel), I’m both that and a Norrellite.

The joys of re-reading!

Master’s Article

Be proud of me.

In college, I finished both Senior Theses in the wee hours of the morning they were due. The result? A History thesis with embarrassing typos and both repeated and omitted words (fixed now, however). My parents pointed these out to me over my spring break that year. My adviser pointed them out to me in a meeting when I returned to school … of course he was kind enough to wait to tell me about these until after I had opened the envelope containing my marked thesis, which I had with me for the duration of the meeting but had not opened. The meeting was about my job prospects. (Curious reader, I did very well on the thesis. The Environmental Studies thesis was fine, too.)

So, yesterday, I made two changes to a draft my current adviser had okay’d. He said they were fine…so I hurried to school, printed my thesis and handed it in. The thesis is not due until Monday. Oh, the change! But really, I have to go home this weekend and did not want to have to print the three copies for submission on Monday along with many of my classmates or run the risk of missing the 10 a.m. deadline as I hurried to my 10:30 a.m. class.

I still have work to do this week for my radio workshop, but I feel like I am on vacation.

Elephants and horses and clowns, oh my!

Every April the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to New York. The large animals (elephants and horses) are unloaded from a train in Queens and then walk through the Queens Midtown Tunnel and along 34th Street to Madison Square Garden. This all happens at around midnight.

There is always a group protesting the use of animals in the circus, and there are always people who go nuts when they see the elephants.

Here are some pictures and a video I shot of the elephants and horses.

Spring Break!

It’s that time again…no classes! Having spent the last two years at a 9-5 job, I forgot that things like … vacations in March … existed!

The last spring break I had was in 2005. My Senior Thesis was due something like the day we left school, so it really was a break.

That spring break I took the GRE. I had a fever that day. I visited a friend at school and watched her Senior Thesis play. I met somebody I liked. I worked. I totaled an electric-blue Pontiac Grand Am. (My parents still are uncomfortable letting me drive, even though the accident was caused by ice on the road.) I had an interview for a summer internship.

This spring break I have to work, too…but on school assignments. Spitzer’s resignation set me back on a policy story and now I have to change direction. My masters article is due in exactly one week. While the J-School library and J-School cafe are not open, I am working in the J-School student center. At least the building and equipment room are open.

So to everyone who left their school for spring break, whether your destination is warm, exotic or just “home”, enjoy it.

Rainy Saturday, Rainy Sunday

Last rainy Saturday, we went to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. We waited in a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts for an hour until the torrent slowed to a drizzle, and finally made it through the gates. After walking past mausoleums and the chapel and pond, we headed up to find the burial sites of Horace Greeley and Boss Tweed. But first, we found the monument to DeWitt Clinton, former governor of New York and the “Father of the Erie Canal”. Is it wrong that we took shelter huddled up against his monument while a 30-second deluge passed?

With the brochures and map of the cemetery, I really felt like a tourist.

Even so, the gravestones of the regular people in the cemetery were more interesting, to me.

For example; William A. Greene. Greene was taken prisoner at Bull Run and held as a prisoner of war for ten months. He reenlisted and was injured in April 1864. He died in Savannah, Geo. in 1865. How do I know this, his complete Army service record is recorded on his stone.

The Warnock-Burrill-Nixon family (Warnock originally from Scotland) has a little plot. One little Warnock stone is engraved with “Baby” on the top and, “To our wee little man,” (James Warnock Nixon) on the face. Little James was born in October 1892 and died only five months and four days later. I wonder what happened.

Another grave marked the passing of two siblings, John “Johnnie” (aged four years) and Eliza “Lizzie” (aged 13 years) Pollock. They passed away within ten months of each other. Their grieving mother wanted the world to know how much tears she shed and the pain she felt, but that she knew they would see each other once more.

My favorite path in Green-Wood passes high above a small pond. The path is not cared for. Bricks that once must have fit smoothly together have crumbled and some are gone. Here is where Peter V. King, Percy R. Pyne and C. A. Heckscher have their mausoleums built into the hillside.

Just before 5 p.m.,we decided that it would soon be dark and that we should leave. But before we made it to the gate, a cemetery security guard who had been following us all afternoon, pulled up next to us in his car and politely asked us to leave. Apparently, the cemetery closed at 5 p.m., which had already passed. Whoops.

We must go back.

This rainy Sunday, I spent fixing up my website and checking my credit score. Score!